For me, the football practice this year, has been intense. Well, the first day I went to play at my club, I saw a zillion kids kicking up some decent dust with their football studs/boots. As usual the mommy brigade was also there with some curvaceous aunties playing doting mommies to their toddler kids who had been brought to the training ground to get their sporting genes activated. I always feel that these parents bring their kids to play football only to check if everything is all right with their kids – “ does my Bablu have his bearings right?" "is my chintu having enough strength in his lungs to run up and down ten times without asking for water?” . What else explains them bringing their off-springs to the football ground – of course its not that they want their child to become the ‘next big thing’ in football!!! Surely its not for the fame and the money – if it were, then they would be sending them to the cricket ground where there are no dearth of training camps. No parent will send her kid to the football ground with an eye on money. Its just to tell her kitty party friends that “oh my son is getting trained at the ‘Dodgers Football Academy’ . you see, playing football is ‘different’.
Anyways, whatever be the reason, I see lot of mommies coming to the stadium and placing themselves on to the concrete stands, where we put our kit-bags and usually sit before the game to discuss and change. Some mothers bring three different bottles along with them – one with water, one with juice and one with glucose. My god, how I hate hand-kerchiefs. I never carry one even to office, forget about carrying one to the football ground , goodness Gracious me !!! I saw this kid with a hand-kerchief pinned to his football jersey. I just rolled my eyes and walked away from the ‘doting mother’. The sweat and the dirt is a part and parcel of the game – sorry the game is not for the vain. It’s a pity that some parents play such a protective role that sometimes it just hampers the child’s perspective of things.
Neverthless, I still do not mind the feminine presence on the field. It adds some spice to the drab and dreary surroundings. I still remember when we used to be in school/college and sometimes we used to have some of our friends’ girl-friends coming along to watch their boy-friends play. It also was a time when the boys could spend some time with their girls without being seen in public, since football ground is not a place where your snoopy parents would come hunting. Anyways, feminine presence always used to create a buzz and no wonder all the individual football skills were promptly put on display. Suddenly the bandanas and the head-bands appeared, the ball would go to the edge of the field more often and there would be wild swipes taken at the ball, to make it reach the stands. Ha ! Ha ! Yours truly was no different as far as the excitement at seeing the beauties was concerned, but I was acutely aware that I should better not get embarrassed conceding a goal with my inept display and make a mockery of myself in front of the fairer audience. The guys would always question me and I would sagely reply “those are someone else’s girlfriends. And I don’t want to make my team-mates jealous by attracting her attentions” ;-P And I would shrug my shoulders and walk away without looking at their reaction – which I can say without an iota of doubt was jeers and laughter !!! They would have laughed their brains out at my statements.
Cutting back to the present - the aunties did notice me as a considerably older boy among their sugarbabies. I come early and do my warm and kick around with the tiny ones while the bigger boys troop in later. This gives a chance to do all the exercise and have the young kids entertain me with their take on football and how it should be played. Once I had a tutorial on how to kick a ball by a 5 year old who was disgusted at the way I was kicking the ball. After the ten minute session was over, I admitted that ‘some of the best advice comes for free and from the most unlikely of sources’.
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